'Spoilt for choice': What we thought of the award winning South Shields restaurant Delhi 6

When it comes to curry houses in South Shields you’re spoilt for choice, so when new Ocean Road restaurant Dehli 6 scooped national honours for its excellence, the Gazette decided to give it a try to see what makes it stand out from the rest.

Delhi 6, was opened by local businessman Shah Lalon Amin in September 2018 – fulfilling a 30-year dream to opened a restaurant on the site where his father, Shah Ruhul Amin, ran the Raj Dulal in the early 80s.

And since then it has picked up two impressive honours. It brought the English Curry Award title to South Shields after going up against some of the best Indian restaurants in the country at the English Curry Awards in Birmingham in August.

The restaurant also took home the regional Tyne and Wear award for 'Best Restaurant' earlier this year.

And its increasing popularity is certainly hard to deny, with groups of hungry customers queuing for a table when we arrived on an otherwise quiet Wednesday night.

We got there around 7pm, but without a booking we were asked to wait at the bar by the team of friendly staff.

But the wait gave us plenty of time time study the menu. And what a menu.

Curry fans set to pay a visit will be impressed by the sheer volume of different dishes on offer, ranging from traditional dishes to street food classics such as Pani Puri and Bhel Puri.

Although all dishes were reasonably priced, we decided to go with the great value three course menu for just £9.95 each, which featured popular favourites such as Chicken Jalfrezi and Lamb Rogan.

As a group we shared all of our dishes to make sure we got a chance to try as much as possible – a great option if you want to give some new dishes a go.

For starters we had Begun fries – made up of aubergines in crispy batter – and malai tikka which is chicken marinated with garlic, ginger and cream cheese.

Both were great, but our third starter to share, the chicken chaat, was by far the best.

Made up of chicken pieces cooked in a tangy bhuna sauce with cucumbers and peppers and served with puree, it certainly packed a punch.

For the main courses we chose chicken tikka from the grill, which literally came out sizzling and was as fresh and tasty as it looked.

We also had the popular chicken tikka masala dish and chicken patia, a sour and fairly hot dish, garnished with lemon and coriander.

For sides we chose vegetable pilau rice, garlic naan bread and chips.

Then to finish we had delicious Indian coffee with cream.

Although we had a bit of a wait for the meals to come, this was made up for the fact that all of the dishes were presented nicely and tasted great.

The staff were also really pleasant and even gave us a free drink to apologise for the wait, which was a nice gesture.

Overall the variety of dishes, the welcoming staff and the good value made it a really nice experience.

It’s easy to see why it won an award and I’ll definitely be going back.

Service: 4/5

Value: 5/5

Food: 5/5

Atmosphere: 4/5